06/29/2015

Inside Higher Ed on SSM and the Bob Jones Precedent

Friday's Supreme Court decision that states must authorize and recognize gay and lesbian marriages could create major legal challenges for religious colleges -- primarily evangelical Christian colleges that bar same-sex relationships among students and faculty members. Or the decision may not create much of a legal challenge at all. Or it may create challenges, but not soon. ...

"Private institutions that dissent from today's reformulation of marriage must be prepared for aggressive legal attacks on all fronts," said Michael W. McConnell, the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford University Law School. ...

Michael A. Olivas, director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at the University of Houston and author of The Law and Higher Education, said that the Supreme Court ruling should prompt Christian colleges to rethink their policies. "In an area of social change that is as well defined as this issue is, why would any college want to violate the law by banning relationships that are not only legal, but if they led to marriage would be legal and recognizable in every jurisdiction in the country?" he asked

Olivas said that this issue will likely play out as the Bob Jones case did. ...

Olivas said he could see a "small" exemption for seminaries that train clergy, but not for most Christian colleges that train undergraduates and students for a variety of careers other than becoming a member of the clergy. For most religious institutions, he said, they would need to renounce tax exemptions to maintain their policies. "They can't have it both ways," he said.

And thus, thanks to Professor Olivas and his allies in the secular left, religious liberty likely will die a little bit more, so as to force religious colleges to adopt the changing mores of secular elites.

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Friday's Supreme Court decision that states must authorize and recognize gay and lesbian marriages could create major legal challenges for religious colleges -- primarily evangelical Christian colleges that bar same-sex relationships among students and faculty members. Or the decision may not create much of a legal challenge at all. Or it may create challenges, but not soon. ...

"Private institutions that dissent from today's reformulation of marriage must be prepared for aggressive legal attacks on all fronts," said Michael W. McConnell, the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford University Law School. ...

Michael A. Olivas, director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at the University of Houston and author of The Law and Higher Education, said that the Supreme Court ruling should prompt Christian colleges to rethink their policies. "In an area of social change that is as well defined as this issue is, why would any college want to violate the law by banning relationships that are not only legal, but if they led to marriage would be legal and recognizable in every jurisdiction in the country?" he asked

Olivas said that this issue will likely play out as the Bob Jones case did. ...

Olivas said he could see a "small" exemption for seminaries that train clergy, but not for most Christian colleges that train undergraduates and students for a variety of careers other than becoming a member of the clergy. For most religious institutions, he said, they would need to renounce tax exemptions to maintain their policies. "They can't have it both ways," he said.

And thus, thanks to Professor Olivas and his allies in the secular left, religious liberty likely will die a little bit more, so as to force religious colleges to adopt the changing mores of secular elites.